Gyeongju I

Dubbed as “the museum without walls”, a place we like to refer to as “the place with stupid cartoon maps”. We went for a long weekend, venturing down to south-east Korea for a little bit of history and culture (along with thousands of other Koreans and foreigners who had the same idea).

We were greeted with chilly, gusty winds. It made us think of home...

We arrived, got our cartoon map (stupid, so stupid), and tried to navigate around the city. While cartoon maps might look good, they aren't hugely helpful. We were pleased to see that other tourists were having similar troubles, holding the map different ways, upside down, pointing frantically and shouting.

Tim wondered why the featured buildings on the map were only the size of small diarys, when they should be a cutish - empire state building size, judging from our map. He said it wasn't him being stupid, it was the map. He was half right.

We gave up for the night, and went and had dinner – on what we discovered later, to be 'Hangover St' – a street filled with oodles of soup and noodle restaurants to cure any hangover.

The next day (wrapped up in all the layers of clothes we could muster), we set off to Bulguksa – a famous historical Shilla Temple (whatever that means). The architecture was beautiful, it was just a shame that a lot of it was closed for restoration. Its on the Unesco World cultural heritage list, and we could see why – stunning pagoda's, woodwork, painting, the forest/ gardens were really nice. It was also home to Chipmunks, however as excited as Tim was to see them, he was a little disappointed in both there weak singing voices and there lack of sweaters.

Anapji Pond was created by a Shilla king, as a 'pleasure pond'. There used to be a whole lot of buildings, with lovely architecture – but they burnt down. The pond is still there, and its really beautiful. There were some giant goldfish and one turtle but Tim again noticed the distinct lake of singing Chipmunks.

Namsan mountain, a big, big mountain with lots of Buddha shrines carved/ embedded in it. We walked, we sweated and we paid respect (hopefully without being sweatily disrespectful). Half way up the mountain we could hear a monk chanting, it was surreal walking through bush and hearing it. We reached the top, and found a little temple, decorated with lanterns (and people). The monk sure was chipper, but again, not the kind Tim was looking for.

I felt a little uncomfortable at first (being the only foreigners up there, and not knowing what was going on). But, we sat down, enjoyed the view – and much to our delight, were given noodle soup and watermelon by a monk. The chanting continued, and we felt like we knew who the cow really was. Leaving the cow there, we continued up to find the ridge of the mountain, only to find .... another shrine. The experience as a whole was phenomenal.

Other sites seen: mounds and mounds of tombs (tombs are covered by mounds) – they were everywhere! The local museum, filled with loads of Shilla artifacts and Korean history. The local bars, where we endeavored to get to a state so that we could test 'hangover street'. Korean “country-side”, quite different to what we had traditionally thought was country.

Its a pretty ace place.